MinervaX

@swagbag7 my understanding is that From Software owns the Sekiro IP but ABK owns the publishing rights at least to that entry. There is also possibility there is something in the contract that gives ABK first-dibs at publishing any sequels, but that's just conjecture.

I guess it's on a similar realm to Sunset Overdrive, the game was published by MS and still listed but the IP is (now) owned by Sony. Sony cant just request a port for PS, and the logistics of a sequel are not worth it given they have other IP (spider-man) to work with anyways. Similarly, I doubt From Software will be rushing to come back to Sekiro anytime soon when they can revisit Dark Souls again, or Elden Ring, or Armored Core, or any number of games.

Real question is if ABK rights are strong enough to allow them to just add Sekiro to Game Pass.

I never played them, but keep thinking Skylanders could really have a comeback as a F2P gatcha game in the vein of Genshin Impact. It’s cartoony look also mean they could leverage every single Microsoft IP for characters and variants without concerns of canonical repercussions. Doom Guy, Conquer, Master Chief, all could be recreated in a cartoony Skylanders setting.

All the way back to the reveal of the Series S my one complaint was always the smaller memory size, that said I don’t buy the “it’s not a problem on PC”.

Sure, you can demand X amount of ram for your game to run at all as a minimum requirement, but it’s not easy to control how much of that ram is hugged by OS, services and other running apps. And honestly, just changing texture quality settings tends to have a big impact on how much memory the game requires.

Again: complained about to the day it was revealed, but don’t buy that it’s not an issue on some system configurations.

@themightyant there are also the recent Spyro and Crash games, but I own those so I didn’t list them. There is the Tony Hawk remake but I dont care for that. Sekiro might or might not make it, since Activision has the publishing right and they might be able to decide how and where to distribute it.

On the older side there are the Prototype games, King Quest and Geometry wars. I’m not personally interested in the last two and already own Prototype, but GamePass exposure could give the game some life and… dare I dream, chance for a sequel. There is also Skylanders but not sure how playable that is without buying toys off ebay.

On the PC front, there are the war craft and StarCraft RTS games.

Overall, there is not a huge volume of content available out of the gate for players that are not fond of first person shooters or Diablo games.

Personally dont like it much. The art is cool and I would not mind it as a wallpaper or a poster but I dont think it looks well on the console.

The controller, on the other hand, looks fantastic, IMO.

@themightyant I would love it if MS renewed the Transformer games licenses (including Devastation) and put them all on Game Pass. Same with 007. Own a physical copy but would also love to see Deadpool relisted.

If wo go that far-reaching, would be amazing if they managed to get the rights to at least re-list the older Spider-Man games, even if no new games are allowed. Same with Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends. Hell... Activision used to make so many licensed games... would be awesome if we could see them all at least re-listed, ideally remastered.

Realistically, though, I'm looking forward to Diablo II, maybe 4 and the CoD back catalog. Would be kind of cool (IMO) to play though the whole series campaign modes on Xbox. According to the wiki, although it seems the very first one (2003) is not on BC.

I am likely going to subscribe to this to play Mirage once i clear Starfield campaign (who knows when will that happen) but thanks to all the UBisoft sales over the years I basically own their entire back catalog, so until more games launch I don’t see much value in staying subscribed unless they start releasing games more regularly. Even releasing smaller games would give us a reason to stay subscribed, like perhaps more rayman 2D games.

Once I’m done with Mirage, Avatar, Prince of Persia and Star Wars Outlaws (assuming they release in a good schedule) I’ll likely unsubscribe.

GamePass is likely the only subscription service I keep running these days even if I’m not playing anything from the service.

@iplaygamesnstuff

Lets cut them, so we can pay the developers more perhaps. Instead of giving us what they promised, they gave us t-shirts for decades old console.

good idea! They can hire a programer to work 5 hours a week for the cost of a T-shirt designer salary.

Would be good to make sure such part-timer does not attempt to use DirectInput to access the data in the hard drive instead of controller input data, though. If he is going to work just 5 hours a week will take them forever to figure out they were supposed to learn DirectStorage APIs instead.

@iplaygamesnstuff yea let’s get those t-shirt designers to write some low level memory streaming assembly code!!!

I miss the old AC game style (hope this one also goes back to the old parkour catacombs) but I didnt dislike the last 3 games at all. There are still quite a few achievements I have not earned in Vallhalla, and plan to at some point, but I have zero complaints with how big of a game it was. Still, wanted classic AC back in some form and would love for them to release both style of games. In a perfect world, both game styles would take turns.

I really wanted to jump into this one day one, but I still have not reached a point where I feel I can put Starfield down. I am mid crimson fleet faction quest line and next to zero progress on the main questline. I might just binge the main plot next, finish the story and visit the other factions on NGP, taking a break to play Mirage in between.

I don't think I'm going to buy this one though, but instead plan to subscribe to Ubisoft+ for the month.

I don’t see deal. The bundle is $50 on the Xbox store. I do see the deal on the web site.

Layoffs always suck, but got to admit that is a fantastic severance package. 6 months + accelerated stock options vesting? That’s plenty of time to find a new job, and anyone finding something before the 6 months end up with quite a nice bundle of cash leftover.

Oh damnit Mirage is around the corner.... I have barely done any progress on Starfield.... damned work!!!!

@J_Mo_Money it’s also kinda finny: most big games take almost 5 years to develop these days. Whatever wheels Jim set into motion won’t be seen for reals until next year. The year we don’t seem to be having any single player games announced for, unless Wolverine shows up.

Sure, Khan, keep setting our tax dollars on fire. We are used to it. 😔

@CorugatedZant

Let’s see:

• Lie to users (we believe in generations bs when all games were multi-gen)
• dismantled Japanese game studio development (if it’s not a big triple a, not worth financing in his vision)
• terrible handling of ABK acquisition (MS offered every ABK game going multiplat, Jim demanded all Zenimax games too, or he would block, at the end now he only gets Call of Duty)
• Games as a service strategy, they claim they won’t pull away from single player games but the only single player game in the horizon is Wolverine. As far as we know, that will be the only single player game first party game next year because everyone else is working on multiplayer games.

Many think I hate PlayStation, when the truth is I just hate what PlayStation has become under him. Bring Kaz back please!!!

This explains why most those environmental element resistances feel entirely meaningless. Survival mode might be interesting, when its added. Would also be nice to see a use for food. As it stands, food make for poor healing items most of the time.

Bought it a while back, but at this price I might actually go and make sure I own it on Steam and PS5… maybe…

I'm rather sure its not the first time he brings Mech Assault.
I know the license for Battletech is a bit odd (same for Shadowrun) but maybe we get to see something sooner or later. They do own the videogame rights.

@BAMozzy One thing I find funny about the whole "no dont buy devs/publishers" is that before the Zenimax acquisition was made public, there were lots of rumors that Sony was trying to buy them. The fact that Sony was willing to pay 4billion for Bungie shows they indeed were likely going for it but got outbid, and the fact that they were buying 1 year timed exclusivity deals for basically all future Bethesda games shows they would have not gone for multi-plat releases either.

It's kinda funny going back to the PushSquare article and seeing quite a few posters muse about the positive impact it would have for Bethesda games being PS exclusive, with no PC releases. That rumor did not get too much wind, but on every discussion I saw at the time, PlayStation fans were drooling at the idea of that. Now, though? Evil evil practice.

@tallythwack This year is already seeing quite a few games delivered on Xbox.

• Age of Empires II
• Minecraft Legends
• Red Fall
• Age of Empires IV
• Starfield
• Forza Motorsport

Yea, Red Fall ended up sucking, but it came out. Not all games are going to be great. And yea, not all of these games will appeal to you, but this is not 2020. MS has delivered games this year.

For contrast, Sony 2023:

• Horizon Call of the Mountain (VR only)
• Marvel's Spider-Man 2

I want to see a partnership with Sega. Not necessarily an acquisition, although I think that would work too. The way I see it, it would work one of two ways:

A) MS takes a large stake on Sega (no acquisition) but Sega remains independent. As part of this, Sega gets to sell a re-branded Xbox in Japan, call it Dreamcast S|X if they want. Sega gets to keep all profits (hardware, game sales, GP subs) from the Japanese market but also need to add all their games to Game Pass day one. It's up to Sega if they want to release their games on other platforms or decide to keep some (or all) games exclusive to Xbox|Dreamcast X. Other than shell design, Sega does not get to redesign the hardware or specs.

B) Sega is acquired by Microsoft, they still start selling Sega branded Xbox Series S|X in Japan, but they keep Sega 100% multi-platform. All Sega|Atlus games go to PlayStation, Nintendo and PC. No exceptions.

@Pikachuuuu btw do you have a link to that update? The article here does not seem to show that update.

@Pikachuuuu still sets Xbox in a position were half the units sold are likely going out at a decent profit margin.

@Widey85 Xbox is already “winning” this generation according to the FTC case leaks. Sure, they have fewer consoles, but they are bribing in a lot more profit (not revenue). Likely a combination of 75% of the Xbox sold being Series S (that is likely sold at good margins), having all their games on PC day one, Game Pass subscriptions, and large multi-platform games like Minecraft. So much for Xbox model being “unsustainable”.

Sounds like it’s Sonys model (super expensive to-make games that are exclusive to a single device) that is not very sustainable.

Anyways, it’s not about volume it’s about profits at the end. Xbox is already doing very well, and will be unstoppable with CoD revenue once that is part of the Xbox ecosystem.

@PhileasFragg got to say that still sounds like an unnecessary restriction, imo. But this is a step in the right direction that will likely bring a lot more players to the game. Maybe eventually they expand on it and give additional features to the mode while still keeping a strong lure on the PvP servers.

You know, I bought these games dirt cheap but have never actually sat down to play them.

Sounds like Take Two is flirting with their own version of EA Play.

@Kaloudz When a specific game or genre does not sell enough physical copies in the UK to hit the top 10, that is evidence that said game or genre is hated by Xbox owners. It’s just science. 🙃

Disappointed no Shin Megami Tensei port reveals 🙁

Honestly, my only issue with the Series X existence from the start was the memory limitations. Smaller, slower ram was going to bite them in the ass. I said it back then very loudly (I mean, as laid as pure Xbox comments can be without being moderated) but was eventually calmed and convinced it could work out for most games. Sadly “most games” wasn’t enough and we have seen that come back to bite Xbox.

I’m not sure they would have been able to make the Series S for only $300 with the same memory as the Series X, though.

Let’s be honest: no one outside a hardcore audience had this game on their top-watch list until the bear scene became a viral sensation. Not saying the game does not earn its positive reviews, but it would had flown under the radar for most people list like the developer other games.

@GamingFan4Lyf although supply likely has a lot to do, there’s a lot of people that just want to play their games and don’t care them look their best, as proven by the number of people playing multi-platform games on the switch or on minimum spec PCs.

Expected. Despite last Gen having PS4 Pros and Xbone Xes, the most sold units were the cheaper base models: PS4 Slim and XBox One S.

This leads me to a grudge I had last Gen with reviewers: most reviewers would only play games on the most powerful model, not the most used models. With pro models, and with Series X|S, i think devs should at least give a bit of a test drive to most games on the hardware most readers are going to be experiencing.

Damn…. Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Remake and FF7 Remake 2 all back to back… I need to work through Starfield faster!!!

@Moonglow Hexen is owned by ABK. The list of titles here, even the unnamed projects, come from Bethesda pre-acquisition so Hexen is not one of them.

@GeeEssEff A hostile takeover is when a company goes out and attempts to buy every single publicly traded stock directly from shareholders and against the wishes of the board/leadership of that company, or bypassing them entirely. It’s not really a thing that has personal definitions.

The 2008 yahoo “takeover” attempt was a direct negotiation with their board and was rejected, attempted to re-negotiate and eventually didn’t go anywhere.

Edit: This wiki does a good job at documenting every acquisition MS has ever gone through. it isn’t as large as many like to insist, for a company as large as MS. Most acquisitions, especially on the 80s and 90s, were relatively small. What MS was infamous for back then was not acquisitions, but producing vaporeare tech demos of technologies other companies were basing their entire startups around, killing their chances at an IPO and success. This was something Bill Gates personally was… disliked, for pursuing and the practice, as far as I recall, ended at some point when it became either beyond his personal focus or when he started to phase away as CEO.

@Kevw2006 I don't read it that way, but mostly because I’m combining it with their track record. MS, as far as I can tell, has never attempted a hostile takeover in its whole history.

The mock-up is ugly as bleep, imo. I like the touted features, seriously like the “wake up when picked up” feature, but this better be added to the design lab options.

If this is an additional SKU, fine. If they remove the disk model from sale, I’ll be very annoyed (unless they start selling USB disk drives.)

I hate the thought of games that require an online connection because a game requires some server to compute x or y algorithms. It’s one thing if the game is an online multiplayer game and the connection is then leveraged (I hear the water in Sea of Thieves looks as amazing as it does because it’s physics are calculated in the cloud) but I would hate for single player games do demand online connectivity.

Also feel like it would be a nightmare to develop for on a single player game.

Surprised about Doom. I think most people I follow were expecting iD to move on to a Quake reboot instead of a prequel.

I am also a bit surprised about a Fallout 3 remaster. We all heard a lot about a Skyrim-style anniversary release of FO4 but 3 is a bit of a surprise. Recently got all achievements on the FO3 for 360 in BC mode and honestly would do it again with a remaster. Hopefully they improve on some character models and add a few QOL features instead of just making a port.

Similar about Oblivion, aside the fact that we have heard rumors about that one for a while.

Also very happy Ghostwire is getting a sequel as well as a new Dishonored.

Edit : oh wait, is this Day Zero thing for doom just DLC? Thought it was a stand alone title…

Edit 2: yea it’s stand alone, it reads “Doom Day Zero & DLC”

@Trmn8r this and also a lot of the time frames are already obsolete. These leaks are almost all obviously from older targets/plans and very likely a lot of it has by now shifted, canceled or changed.

A Doom prequel was surprising, IMO, as was the expectation they considered Indiana Jones to be out last year.

My biggest surprise was seeing a Doom prequel in that list. Also interesting to see a few things that were scheduled for this year and didn’t make the cut. Indiana Jones was expected this year it seems, so it’s not impossible we will see it hit next year.

I hate the idea of an Xbox series X refresh where they eliminate the disk drive. I am all-digital on Xbox but a lot of consumers have built physical libraries, not to mention a significant number of delisted games that can only be acquired in physical from. (Deadpool and Transformers Devastation come to mind). I would hate a future were it’s impossible to insert such a disk into any current Gen Xbox sold on stores. Relying on discontinued models would be unacceptable.

If they planning to sell a USB disk drive? I might be much more accepting.

I just read a few posts here before I hurt my face with repetitive hits of my palm.

First off: anyone that is anyone and has the money would love to buy Nintendo. MS just happens to have the wallet to do it. If you think Sony would not love to buy Nintendo you are kidding yourselves. Same for the likes of Tencent or Amazon. Nintendo is extremely valuable in IP alone and not having any interest in such an acquisition, if it was on the table, would be absurd.

This letter shows only two real bits of info:

1. MS is ready to jump in and buy Nintendo if they ever mess up again and go the path of the Wii U, making them start to finally give up. Honestly this is an unlikely scenario, but if it was to happen, MS would be willing to buy them regardless their financial status.
2. MS is heavily against hostile acquisitions. No one should really be against willing mergers. Being against them is as much as being against all forms of capitalism, because these are the type of deals that drive all capitalist models. Being entirely against hostile takeovers is the one thing I want to keep seeing in any internal documentation from MS because it’s the one thing I hate. I’ll be worried the day I hear MS is contemplating a hostile takeover of any company, as small as such a company might be.

Doubt I’ll have time to play anything other than Starfield but Lies of P is on my radar to play at some point.

This means nothing until they actually roll back the whole thing. “Changes” might be something stupid as simply re-phrasing what an “install” means.

As far as I care Unity is no longer safe to use regardless what they do unless they do every single one of these things:

• completely roll back this insane install policy
• Fire the CEO
• Make licensing changes (restore them) that specifically make sure no retroactive changes can be forced on developers that don’t agree to them so long they stay on older tools
• Drop the requirement for the SDK to be “always online”
• restore the GitHub to track licensing agreement changes

Even then the trust is gone, but at lest those steps would give room for a developer to use Unity without “trust”, simply continuously keeping an eye on any license changes.

I personally am not going back to Unity regardless.

Starfield if I manage to find some time. Have also not played any FFXIV this week and would like to get my weekly tomes goal so hopefully I find some time for that too. So far the outlook of me playing anything is looking low, though.

Need to finish Starfield before I can vote on this.

Edit: I’ll say this much: for me any Fallout [76 does not count] ranks higher than any Elder Scrolls game.

Whoops. Sure Phil is not happy about this being revealed this way, especially so loosely.